U.S.: National Blogging for Real Education Reform
I haven't had the time to read all posts being written by call of Cooperative Catalyst. But thanks to an invitation sent via Twitter message by @pammoran, I want to quickly elaborate two points for this matter.One is the respect we as teachers need to regain. Recently, if you were following news about education reform, a powerful voice said teachers don't need experience and that basically anyone can be a teacher. You know who was that. When someone who is being listened says this, and no one with the equivalent power can answer back, I feel exacerbated.
Jose Vilson in a powerful piece writes: "In other cultures, teachers are respected and in some cases, are the cultural equivalent of royalty and government officials. Here, teachers can only voice their opinion if they’ve a) left the profession b) became a PhD or c) did something absurdly outrageous/courageous."
Every single teacher in this country needs to voice and stand up to defend not only education but they career. No one of the people in Washington would be there, if it is not for a teacher who was the guidance at early ages. If professionals of education do not stand up, other will misrepresent them. And that's what is going on, unfortunately.
Secondly, I think unions are not playing the role many educators expect. I am not against unions but how quickly they react to everyone who had a counter interest to teachers.
Those groups, we teachers have to deal with, are highly organized and they can successfully influence policymakers. We need to build a national coalition funded on membership so we can have the ability to carry on an agenda and go to the Capitol with our own representatives.
Until we the teachers are not respected as professionals and have not a coalition that gathers all groups of organized teachers, get our adrenaline high, and fund ourselves such an organization, it will be difficult to gain government attention to our own issues about education.
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I feel that it really comes down to power. Teachers aren't given the power to do a lot of the things they could in the past. In some school districts a teacher is not allowed to offer a zero for assignments. Teachers shouldn't be forced into making curves for their students. I feel that teachers have enough judgment to create an environment for success without having the school board get involved. Small details like these have crippled the power that teachers have and lessen the respect we have for our teachers. A teacher that can effectively combat laziness and procrastination by threatening grades can command respect from their students.